On Thursday, August 8th, Disney VP of Marketing Gordon Ho and Senior VP of Creative Services & DVD Andy Fiditsky and Lion King producer Don Hahn held court in Los Angeles to deliver an exclusive sneak peek at the upcoming Platinum Edition two-disc set. One of the most eagerly-awaited DVD releases of all time, the trio previewed the set's many features and sat down for a Q&A about fans can expect on October 4th...

The Lion King remains the most successful of all the recent Disney animated features. Why do you think the public so embraced this particular film?

Don Hahn: I'm probably too close to it to answer that question. But I think a lot of it is the emotion of the story, and a lot of times it is like catching lightning in a bottle. You try to put the chemistry of those elements of music and art and all those things together in the same place and sometimes it works better than others. People really seemed to relate to the story of a character that has lost his father yet his father was always there with him. It was very emotional for people and remains so. It is really that tie and our relationships with our parents and that kind of heart tug that Simba has in the story is profound and pretty deep.

And the other thing that I feel is really important to the success of the story is the music. That shows up in the "Rhythm of the Pridelands" (featurette), there was also a soundtrack that was released when the movie came out and there is a music video from that on this disc. And it shows up in the Broadway show as well. I think the music has had a profound influence on people's appreciation of the story and the movie.

At the time, The Lion King was not expected to become such a landmark - Pocahontas was - so did you ever consider abandoning it or changing the concept, the music...?

DH: No one could have imagined that this coming-of-age story would amount to much. In the early days of production, I had trouble getting people to work on the film. At times when The Lion King was at full throttle, we started to wonder what we had done or if anyone would see it. I remember calling my sister and telling her I was working on a film - "sort of Moses and Joseph meet Elton John and Hamlet in Africa." There was a very long pause on the other end of the line. Then she said, "Well, I hope it works out." And it did.

While it is no real surprise that The Lion King would be selected as a Platinum title, in terms of the collection in general, how did you go about selecting which titles would make the cut? How do you differentiate between what is Platinum material and what is merely "special?"

Gordon Ho: We really think all of our library is special, and to be honest, there was a review written - I can't remember - that basically said, Thank gosh Disney only releases one Platinum title a year, because we wouldn't have time to explore and look at all the things that are on a Platinum title. So quite frankly, it is a matter of resources and the consumer appetite. If we made everything Platinum there wouldn't be time from a resource standpoint and I think consumers would say, Oh, my goodness, there are so many. So it is really about allocation and doing the best job that we can for the titles we can.

What was the basic objective in coming up with the focus for the supplements on the disc?

DH: When The Lion King was selected as the third in the Platinum Edition series, we found the prospect fairly astounding. THe first two releases were tough acts to follow. And since we knew firsthand THe Lion King phenomenon, we wanted to create a DVD that would encompass all the many journeys that led to continents of creative adventure. Most of us were already DVD aficionados, and we jumped at the opportunity to create an entire DVD experience that would welcome you into the realms of Simba's kingdom

Unlike the first Disney Platinum Series title, Snow White, The Lion King is a much more recent film. What sort of restoration, if any, was needed to bring it to DVD?

We did have to restore it. It was kind of a serendipitous route. The Lion King was one of the earliest films to be completed in a digital format. When it came time in 2002 for the film's large-screen debut, we first restored it to put it out in IMAX theaters. The movie itself was stored digitally on CDs on a shelf. So if you were to look at The Lion King in the archives it is a row of discs lined up on a shelf. We brought those back into the computer system and res'd it up to 4K and created IMAX frames for the IMAX run. Which did really well and was a lot of fun.

And as a part of that IMAX release, we cleaned up the movie. We went back into about 80 scenes and enhanced it. For example, when Pumba and Timba are singing in some scenes in the jungle, they didn't have faces; now on a small screen you didn't notice that, but on a large screen their faces were the size of a Buick so we had to go in and touch them up. The waterfalls in "Can You Feel the Love Tonight?" were enhanced also, because we ran out of time and money ten years ago.

So we decided that if there was anything that we could do to enhance the movie or fix things when we were going to represent this we decided, "Let's do it." So that IMAX presentation really helped us in the restoration as the initial step. And to add to that, we have Terry Porter's new mix, we brought all that digital information back on line. That is what led to this - it was less about deterioration and more about restoring it and rebuilding it towards this DVD release.